OPINION:
President Biden just had the most ironic ending to his political career: His term began with his denying the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and this week, he pardoned his son for all the things found on the laptop.
Despite vowing for years that he would not pardon his son, Mr. Biden changed his mind and on Sunday granted his boy a sweeping pardon that covers any illegal acts he may have committed over an 11-year period.
“I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice — and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” Mr. Biden said in his statement.
Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced for his conviction on federal gun charges on Dec. 12. Four days later, he was set to be sentenced in a separate criminal case in which he pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges in September, having failed to pay $1.4 million.
Mr. Biden had repeatedly asserted he would not pardon his son. “I am satisfied that I’m not going to do anything,” the president told reporters at the G7 summit in Italy in June. “I will abide by the jury’s decision. I will do that. And I will not pardon him.”
But after the family gathered for Thanksgiving, Mr. Biden did just that.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” he said in his statement. “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
That makes no sense because Hunter Biden was charged by the Justice Department his father oversees and found guilty in a liberal state by a jury of his peers. Special counsel David Weiss, who prosecuted Hunter Biden, took issue with the president’s declaration that the whole thing is a miscarriage of justice.
“There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case,” Mr. Weiss wrote in the tax case filing, adding that “his charges should [not] be wiped away because the defendant falsely claimed that the charges were the result of some improper motive. … No court has agreed with the defendant on these baseless claims, and his request to dismiss the indictment finds no support in the law or the practice of this district.”
The pardon was expansive, covering “those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted (including any that have resulted in convictions) by Special Counsel David C. Weiss.”
The about-face left White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tongue-tied. She said the prosecutions were part of “war politics” while also declaring the president has faith in the Justice Department. Her machinations were downright embarrassing.
“Karine, when the president says that the justice system is infected with politics, how deep is the rot, and how much of the blame does the president take on himself for the fact that his own Justice Department, his appointees, have allowed it to get this bad?” a reporter asked.
As Ms. Jean-Pierre stated that Mr. Biden “believes in the Justice Department,” the reporter cut in and exclaimed, “He just said it’s infected with politics!”
Another reporter took direct aim at the spokesman.
“You have said repeatedly yourself since the election, the president has said for months no pardon was coming. I just — you know, I wanted to ask you: Could those statements now be seen as lies from the American people? Is there really a credibility issue here, given now this announcement?” the reporter asked.
Her answer is one for the ages.
“First of all, one of the things that the president always believes is to be truthful to the American people. That is something that he always truly believes,” she said. “And if you see the end of his — I’m — I assume that you’ve read his — his statement — and you look at the end of that statement, and he actually says that in the first line in the last paragraph and — and respects the thinking and how the American people will actually see this in his decision-making.”
And now, Mr. Biden is a punch line.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on X @josephcurl.
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